Du Heng was so focused on beating up the dismemberment forensic doctor that he failed to notice that Mo Bai, who was beside the forensic doctor, was already awake. He just kept punching away in earnest.

Mo Bai hurried over and shielded the forensic doctor. She said to the two men, "I'm fine. The forensic doctor has been helping me the whole time. Stop bullying him."

When the dismemberment forensic doctor saw that Mo Bai had woken up, joy first flashed across his face. Then he looked somewhat aggrieved. In the end, he merely rubbed the corner of his eye, hugged himself, and shrank into Mo Bai's shadow, looking pitiful beyond words.

Mo Bai: "..."

She had important things to do too. She had only been late by two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven... hours. Forget it. She couldn't even remember how many hours she'd been delayed. There had been far too many hospital rooms in the dream domain. Judging by her own sense of time, she had spent at least ten hours there.

The forensic doctor's eye corners had been cut open and stitched back together. His eye sockets were absurdly large, large enough that his eyeballs often fell out.

Because of that, his eyes appeared especially huge, and he was currently staring at Mo Bai with those enormous eyes. Mo Bai suddenly felt a little guilty and turned her face away, not daring to meet his gaze.

Mo Bai had made countless enemies throughout her life. She feared neither powerful monsters nor mental contamination. Yet the dismemberment forensic doctor managed to make her retreat with nothing but a look. He had accomplished something even Ultra-Star Rank monsters could not.

In a plaintive voice, the forensic doctor said, "I never locked the door."

Mo Bai: "..."

He continued, "I waited for hour after hour. Every so often, I'd pull up the surveillance cameras to see where you were."

Mo Bai lowered her head.

The forensic doctor went on, "By the eleventh hour, these two had rushed into Room 502 looking for you everywhere. I was afraid they'd run outside, create new fear monsters, and ruin your plan. So I had no choice but to use the monitoring room's authority to wake everyone up. After waking up, they've been beating me ever since."

Sheng Yan immediately protested, "Mo Bai, he's making things sound worse than they were. We only waited outside for ten minutes. When you still hadn't come out and didn't send us any signal, we rushed in to rescue you. And we didn't beat him for that long. We only questioned him for about two minutes before you woke up."

After doing a quick calculation, Mo Bai asked, "Time passes differently in the dream domain compared to the real world? One minute outside equals one hour inside?"

The forensic doctor nodded. "That's right. Otherwise, I wouldn't have dared bring you in. I was worried they'd come charging in if we stayed too long. I just didn't expect ten hours to pass and you still wouldn't return."

The time distortion was similar to that of the Smiling Circus. Thinking about it, that made sense. The Ringmaster had possessed the nightmare creature's genes and had even shared the genetic information with Professor Yang. It turned out that he had used the nightmare creature's abilities to reinforce his domain and enhance his magic tricks. Afterward, he sold the technology to others, only to become entangled in Disease Town as a result.

Mo Bai turned to Du Heng and Sheng Yan.

"Alright, you two. Apologize to the forensic doctor. He's been helping me all along."

"Huh? Apologize to an instance monster?" Du Heng exclaimed in shock.

Sheng Yan looked even more resistant. "An apology? You might as well kill me."

Mo Bai punched each of them once and said coldly, "Apologize."

The two lined up side by side, lowered their heads, and said awkwardly, "Sorry. We misunderstood you, forensic doctor."

Mo Bai added, "I owe you an apology too. I thought you'd leave after an hour. I didn't realize you were this kind and this considerate. I never thought you'd wait for me all this time."

The forensic doctor ignored Du Heng and Sheng Yan entirely. Looking only at Mo Bai, he said:

"I watched you through the surveillance cameras the whole time. I saw you overcome your own fears first, then recruit Li Ming and use him to deal with the fear monsters in the other rooms. I thought you might actually be able to solve the dream domain's problems, so I wanted to see how far you could go.

Later, I saw you kill Li Ming and obtain that crucial card. At that point, I knew you could resolve this dream.

"Unfortunately, Room 404 is outside the surveillance system's coverage. I couldn't see what happened inside. I wanted to wait and see the outcome, but then they barged in, and I had to take them out.

"So what happened in the end? Did the nightmare creature wake up?"

"The dream domain disappeared," Mo Bai replied. "He thanked me."

After a moment of silence, the forensic doctor said, "I'd like to go see him. He's been sleeping on the fifth floor of the inpatient ward all this time. I wonder what he's become."

"Sure. But first, we need to treat my two friends," said Mo Bai.

She took out one of her intermediate healing potions, pinched Liu Congyi's chin, and poured it down her throat.

After drinking the potion, Liu Congyi coughed twice and gradually regained consciousness.

Mo Bai had knocked her out earlier, so her injuries were purely physical. Once the wounds healed, waking up was only natural.

The moment she opened her eyes, the forensic doctor silently raised his scalpel again and took position behind Mo Bai, looking terrifying.

Du Heng and Sheng Yan immediately grabbed him from both sides to stop him from approaching her.

At first, Liu Congyi was perfectly lucid when she woke up. Seeing Mo Bai, she happily cried out.

But just as she was about to call Mo Bai's name, something went wrong.

With incoherent cries, she lunged at the forensic doctor, trying to snatch away his scalpel.

Mo Bai restrained Liu Congyi and, with the last of her strength, activated Environmental Rejection.

Most of her power was already exhausted in the dream domain. What remained was very little. She was effectively overexerting herself just to use the ability.

She expelled Gao Siyun's contamination.

Gradually, clarity returned to Liu Congyi's eyes. She happily called out Mo Bai's name.

Since Liu Congyi couldn't hear, Mo Bai quickly grabbed the forensic doctor's scalpel and carved several words into the wall:

"Memory Erasure. Give it to me."

Forensic doctor: "..."

Liu Congyi also remembered her earlier bout of madness. She immediately took out the Memory Erasure card and handed it to Mo Bai.

After checking the card's instructions, Mo Bai discovered that it required Mental Power to activate.

Since she had already overdrawn her Mental Power, she handed the card to Du Heng instead and asked him to erase Liu Congyi's memories of what had happened in the archives room.

Du Heng had no idea what those memories contained, but the card could extract the designated memory from Liu Congyi's mind and permanently delete it.

Once the memory was erased, Mo Bai deactivated Environmental Rejection.

Having overdrawn both her physical and mental strength, she collapsed uncontrollably.

Liu Congyi, who was closest to her, caught her in her arms.

A gentle force flowed from Liu Congyi's palm into Mo Bai's body.

This was the energy Liu Congyi had painstakingly accumulated over the past several days using her E-type ability.

Mo Bai's energy bar was rather long. Even after replenishing fifty percent of it, Liu Congyi had to withdraw her hand.

However, the energy she supplied felt different from the system's nutrient solution.

The system's nutrient solution was like drinking an energy drink. It was bland and functional, merely restoring stamina.

The energy provided by Liu Congyi, on the other hand, was warm and soothing. Not only did it replenish Mo Bai's energy, it also comforted the brain damage caused by her overexertion.

It felt like receiving a massage for sore muscles.

"Th-thank you," Mo Bai said.

The phrase was simple enough that Liu Congyi could read it from her lips.

She smiled and replied, "What's there to thank me for? Isn't this what friends are supposed to do?"

Seeing that Liu Congyi had forgotten that memory, the forensic doctor finally lowered his hand.

He no longer even had a scalpel, yet he still made a deliberate gesture of putting one away. It was as if he wanted to prove that he was still one of the domain's good monsters, still obeying the rules.

Mo Bai returned the scalpel to him.

"Sorry. I couldn't find paper or a pen, so I borrowed it."

The forensic doctor took back the scalpel and repeatedly wiped it on his tattered clothes, wearing an expression that clearly said, My scalpel has been dirtied.

Only after cleaning off all the dust from the wall did he slowly say,

"It's fine. Compared to the other things you've done to me, this isn't even the worst."

Mo Bai guiltily turned her face away.

Liu Congyi looked from one person to another, completely confused by the situation.

That forensic doctor was obviously an instance monster. Why was everyone getting along with him so well?

Mo Bai was one thing. She had always been good at making monsters work for her.

But why did Du Heng and Sheng Yan also seem to share some strange, subtle camaraderie with the dismemberment forensic doctor?

Mo Bai said, "Let's put that aside for now. I still need to treat Sheng Yan and Liu Congyi's injuries. I have a way to heal them, but it can only save one person. You two should discuss it and decide for yourselves."

In her palm was the red mark Yang Lingxi had left on her before they entered the hospital.

Previously, she hadn't known how to use it. Yang Lingxi had only told her that it could protect Dad once.

But who exactly Dad referred to had never been clear.

After everything that happened in Room 404, Mo Bai finally understood.

Dad referred to those who had inherited Professor Yang's monster genes. They were the people who had once been injected with the extract at Research Institute No. 7.

Her own problem and Du Heng's had already been resolved through other means.

Sheng Yan's and Liu Congyi's had not.

The mark could only help one person. Mo Bai couldn't choose, so the decision had to be theirs.

Having spent an entire day with both Sheng Yan and the now-deaf Liu Congyi, Du Heng knew how to communicate with her.

He pulled out a notebook and pen and quickly wrote down Mo Bai's explanation.

After reading it, Liu Congyi said,

"Obviously, Sheng Yan should be saved. My hearing will recover once we leave the instance, right? It doesn't stop me from functioning normally. You guys can just keep an eye out for danger on my behalf.

Sheng Yan is different. His condition is much more serious. The virus has entered his body. He's in pain all over. As long as he's exposed to the outside air, he keeps getting punished. It's horrible, and it hurts so much. I don't even know how long he can keep enduring it. Of course, the mark should be used on him."

But after hearing her out, Sheng Yan asked,

"If I use this, will I be able to use my ability again?"

Mo Bai shook her head.

"No. It can only temporarily heal your injuries. As long as you don't use your ability, the treatment will hold. But the moment you use it and violate the domain's rules again, you'll be punished all over again."

"Save Liu Congyi," Sheng Yan said decisively.

"Her ability depends heavily on hearing. She needs to communicate with people in order to gather energy and form the seeds of psychological shadows. Without her hearing, her ability is severely weakened."

Only then did Mo Bai realize how precisely the town's seals had targeted each of them.

The disabilities were tailored specifically to suppress their powers.

Mo Bai's environmental ability required her to understand an environment by more than fifty percent. The town sealed her vision, making it difficult for her to perceive her surroundings.

Du Heng's ability depended heavily on mobility. So the town sealed his legs, forcing others to drag him around and leaving him without even the strength to swing his scythe.

Liu Congyi's ability relied on communication. So the town sealed her hearing, preventing her from interacting with others.

As for Sheng Yan, there was no need to elaborate.

His entire ability had been sealed.

Liu Congyi made her choice from the perspective of preserving life. She believed Sheng Yan would continue to suffer if nothing was done, so he had to be saved.

Sheng Yan made his choice from the perspective of combat effectiveness. He wanted to preserve the team's greatest fighting strength. In his view, healing himself had little value, so Liu Congyi had to be saved.

Both of their arguments were perfectly reasonable.

And both were thinking of the other person.

Seeing teammates like this, Mo Bai couldn't help but feel warmth spread through her heart.

The resentment she had developed because of Li Ming gradually faded away.

Not every combat-oriented player was like Li Ming, and not every organization was like Avici.

She couldn't treat all combat players as enemies.

"But people can change, meow~" Xiao Qi said in her mind.

Now that the dream had ended, Xiao Qi returned as well.

In fact, when they entered Room 404, Xiao Qi had already gone back into Mo Bai's consciousness.

The power of Room 404 suppressed the dream domain itself. Since Mo Bai couldn't assimilate Room 404, Xiao Qi couldn't manifest physically there and could only revert to a consciousness.

However, ever since then, Xiao Qi had started ending every sentence with a little "meow." It clearly loved its black cat form.

"I know. I'll stay vigilant," Mo Bai reassured it silently.

Du Heng quickly relayed Sheng Yan's words to Liu Congyi.

Liu Congyi frowned briefly, then offered an even stronger argument:

"I can't obtain energy from the town's NPCs."

Everyone looked at her.

Mo Bai didn't know this, but Du Heng and Sheng Yan remembered.

Before they had headed to the hospital, Liu Congyi had tried asking people along the roadside for directions. Every one of them had behaved as though they were mentally impaired. Their expressions were vacant and blank, and they were impossible to communicate with.

"I can still gain energy by talking with you," Liu Congyi explained. "There are just fewer people, so the energy gain is lower. But it's still increasing slowly. Once we reunite with Ding Xun and the others, there'll be more people to talk to. Losing my hearing won't affect my energy income that much."

Once again, she provided a compelling reason to save Sheng Yan.

Sheng Yan frowned and stepped forward, clearly about to produce another counterargument.

Before he could speak, Mo Bai made the decision.

"Enough. We'll save Sheng Yan first."

Sheng Yan looked at her disapprovingly, but Mo Bai also had her own reasoning.

"We're about to head for the Plague Garden instance, and it's quite far from here. You're moving too slowly and will delay the entire group. Besides, after we meet up with Ding Xun's team, they have a card that can save people too. We can cure Liu Congyi then."

Mo Bai was also making her decision from the standpoint of preserving life.

If Sheng Yan wasn't treated, he might genuinely bleed to death.

This time, she gave him no opportunity to refuse and pressed her palm against him.

A red glow drifted out from the mark in her hand. I transformed into a red dress and settled onto Sheng Yan's body.

Everyone: "..."

His injuries healed immediately, but the dress remained.

It seemed that as long as the red dress stayed on him, it would continuously protect him.

"What the hell is this?!" Sheng Yan tried to pull the dress off.

To his horror, it clung to him as if it was fused with his body. No matter what he did, he couldn't remove it.

"I told you we should've saved Liu Congyi! She would've looked great wearing this!"

Veins bulged on his forehead as he shouted furiously.

"Well, you've got enough energy to yell now. That's a good sign."

Du Heng walked over and patted him on the shoulder.

Laughing, Liu Congyi tugged on the hem of the dress.

As Sheng Yan erupted in outrage, she innocently said, "I can't hear you."

Mo Bai also tried to comfort him.

"What's more important, a dress or your life? This is the love of a future Ultra-Star Rank monster. Just accept it."

Sheng Yan: "..."

Since the dress clearly wasn't coming off, he could only resign himself to it.

Seeing that everyone was now healthy again, the dismemberment forensic doctor impatiently headed through the underground passage toward the inpatient ward.

As he passed Sheng Yan, he casually remarked, "What's wrong with a dress? It's a lot better than my clothes."

Sheng Yan shouted after him, "Hey! Aren't you supposed to be an instance monster? You've got way too much humanity in you!"

The forensic doctor ignored him. He was busy with more important matters.

He hurried all the way to the fifth floor and rushed into Room 501.

Opening the door, he found someone lying inside.

Or rather, something that could barely still be called human.

The body had completely withered away, and only the brain remained intact within the skull.

It seemed that over all these years, every bit of nourishment from the body had been devoted to maintaining the brain's dream and sustaining this entire domain.

The dismemberment forensic doctor approached the bed and knelt beside it.

Pressing his ear against the skull, he listened.

He listened for a very, very long time, but no one knew what he heard.

Mo Bai simply watched quietly from nearby.

After a long while, the forensic doctor raised his head.

The brain inside the skull had already turned to gray ash, and a gust of wind scattered it away.

Yet the forensic doctor looked deeply at peace.

"Xiao Shen said he completed his mission," he said. "He successfully delivered the information and passed the work on to those who came after him. He has no regrets, so he's moving on first."

Du Heng looked baffled.

"You can hear what a corpse is saying?"

Sheng Yan also wanted to comment, but he was busy writing everything down for Liu Congyi in real time.

Since Liu Congyi had given him her chance at survival, Sheng Yan intended to become her ears, allowing her to hear everything around them.

The forensic doctor's expression was solemn, yet there was also pride and honor within it.

"I'm a forensic doctor," he said.

"Of course, I can hear the voices of the dead. That's my profession."

The moment he said those words, it was as if he suddenly awakened from a dream himself.

He stared at the scalpel in his hand and murmured:

"That's right... My task was never to keep secrets forever.

My task. My duty. My mission...

...is to carry the voices of the dead to the living."

He looked at Mo Bai as his huge eyes shone brightly, and a relieved smile appeared on his face.

"So that's why I've guarded this place all these years."

His voice rang out clearly.

"I was only... only looking for someone who could clearly hear my voice while fully awake."

Mo Bai nodded softly.

That document was never a research record. It was the forensic doctor's own notes all along.

His goal was to pass those notes on and finish the final piece of work he had left behind before death.

"I did it."

He looked at Mo Bai.

"The rest is up to you."

With those words, he sat beside the nightmare creature's bed. His flesh weathered away into dust, and only a scattered pile of white bones remained.

He already died seven years ago.

On him, Mo Bai saw light as well. It drifted away toward an unknown destination.

"What's happening?" Du Heng said. "This is the first time I've ever seen an instance monster disappear like this."

"Because the malice has ended," Mo Bai said softly.

"The negative flow has come to an end and transformed into a positive flow. From death comes life. Even death can become a new beginning."

Du Heng stared at her.

"What are you talking about? I don't understand a single word. You're starting to sound more and more like our captain. He's always talking in mysterious prophecies nobody can understand."

Mo Bai thought for a moment.

"I don't really know what I'm talking about either."

She paused.

"I just feel like I'm still one tiny step away from seeing through the true nature of this world."

Liu Congyi, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly spoke up.

"Sheng Yan writes too slowly, so I don't know what serious topic you're discussing. But haven't any of you noticed that we've somehow gone from the fifth floor to outdoors without feeling anything? Haven't you noticed that the hospital has disappeared? We don't have the safe zone protecting us anymore, and I think I'm about to start coughing again."

As Liu Congyi said, the moment the dismemberment forensic doctor turned into a pile of bones, the hospital vanished.

They were standing on an empty stretch of land with no buildings anywhere, and only a dead black cat lay among the withered grass.

And, unsurprisingly, two new cards had appeared in Mo Bai's hand.

Ruins of an Abandoned Hospital and Ruins of a Dream.